The coming ice age

[brokensymmetry]

I thought this article might be of interest, especially in light of the discussions about peak oil.

I've included 4 paragraphs - but please read the article if you've got the time.
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http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/silveira86lw.html

But we now have evidence that ice ages come on with an abruptness that will catch us by total surprise. Physical evidence indicates that when the last ice age started, the British Isles went from a temperate climate to being completely covered with glaciers hundreds of feet thick in just 20 years.


Countries bordering on both sides of the Atlantic will change radically as a result of changes in the Gulf Stream, and Europe, which today is almost 20 degrees warmer than other parts of the world at the same latitude, will become as cold and dry as Siberia. The Sahara may again become forested while the Amazon basin becomes a desert. Florida may also become a desert, as it was in a previous ice age.

At the same time, if the climate changes enough to disturb the monsoon season that fuels agriculture from Africa to China, where over half the world’s six billion people now live, hundreds of millions will starve when the climate abruptly changes. There’s no way to prepare them for that.

What seems fairly certain is that we will go from the world as it is today to full-blown glaciation in less than 20 years, maybe in as little as four or five. And there is no way the United States can adjust to and survive a climate change this abrupt.

[SheilaT]

1. The thing about climate

is that we really don't know a lot about it. Our record keeping doesn't go back that far -- it's only reliable back a few hundred years, depending on what part of the world you're talking about. That's no where near long enough to understand very much.

It's a topic that has always fascinated me (along with epidemiology) and I read everything I can about it.

Most people are going to think the article you've referenced is totally tin-foil hat stuff. I do not know how good that particular source is, and I think he's being a little extreme -- I don't think the record shows that it took only 20 years for the British Isles to have several hundred feet of ice cover. But in that length of time, from what I've read, it did go from a moderate climate (like today's) to an Ice Age environment. Not that much difference.

What a lot of people don't clearly understand is that global warming, which is happening right now, will usher in climate instability the likes of which has not occurred in historic times. Civilization as we know it is a product of an interglacial warming that happened about 10,000 years ago and things could change quite drastically very quickly.

[brokensymmetry]

4. I hear you...

Due to the source, many will regard it as tin-foil hat material.

However, the U.S. Government has a site that includes a summary that's similar to the article. You can view it at http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/seminars/960123SM.html if you'd like.

[RainDog]

8. scientists are taking ice core samples

which can look at weather patterns much farther back in time.

it seems that the data support the idea that rapid climate change has occurred previously.

Even the Pentagon admits this is true. Did you read their report about concerns about global warming changing the course of the Atlantic conveyor, and the subsequent cooling of Europe, along with drastic weather in other parts of the world?

I wouldn't consider them leftist..maybe tin foil hat, since that's their job, to consider worst-case scenarios.

but if even the hawks are concerned...then I would think that anyone who isn't is willfully refusing to address an important issue.

[Boomer]

9. You're mistaken...

>>Our record keeping doesn't go back that far -- it's only reliable back a few hundred years<<

That's true only if you want a very specific bit of information, like what was the temperature on a given day 530 years ago. But through a number of different techniques -- from counting tree rings to analyzing ice cores -- scientists have been able to create detailed weather maps going back thousands of years. And the latest findings indicate that the advent of an Ice Age is incredibly rapid -- a matter of only a few decades.

This degree of change is speedy even by human rather than geological standards. And the inevitable result will be massive depopulation since our agri-business can't possibly sustain its current level of production under such extreme circumstances.

The human species has flourished in the short 10,000 year window of mild climate conditions -- but the good times are about to end. If I'm lucky, they won't end for another few decades and I'll miss all the excitement. If I'm not so lucky, I'll try to take as much intellectual enjoyment as possible in witnessing the end of the reign of homo sapiens. If nothing else, it will be extremely... interesting.

[patricia92243]

2. Ice?? We are burning up

[brokensymmetry]

3. Sorta...but that's not the whole story.

As we warm up, parts of the ocean get an influx of melted ice and additional rain. That means that some areas become less salty, and hence lighter. And that, in turn, could affect the North Atlantic conveyor.

If you'd like to read more, an interview with the Columbia, University researcher who discovered the effect is available at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/23/11/13.html

[Kool Kitty]

6. Right. That North Atlantic conveyor is the

Gulf Stream. It is warmer, without question. The warmth melts the ice, look at the North Pole (open water for the first time in recorded history), and that fresh water is the problem. This scares me much more than terrorism. If the climate changes, and people are scrambling for livable land and resources, this will be a disaster of epic proportion.

[brokensymmetry]

5. BareKnuckledLiberal has a better link -

You might wish to read it here: http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/climatechange_wef.html

It even has animations!

[minkyboodle]

7. he always does

Hate to gush with praise here but BareKnuckledLiberal always come through in this forum IMO..
Heres to you monkeyman!!!! :toast:
Scott

[Dogmudgeon]

10. I've got FANS!

Aw, gee ... thanks, yous guys!

I've been following the climate problems since the late 1970s, when Wallace Broecker published the first scientific model of abrupt climate change. Older DUers may remember that the story broke after two particularly cold winters. By way of gossip, Dr. Broecker has a relative who is a major DUer here, and she reports that he's still quite politically active for being in his 70s, suffering a bout of recent illness, and being an overworked scientist who still gets out into the field as often as he can. He also seems to have been an influence of Al Gore's environmental thinking and Earth in the Balance. In my view, that's the kind of guy our kids should be looking up to, instead of some of the sad excuses for musicians and athletes.

(Now watch as I make the scientists hate me!)

In late May, The Day After Tomorrow will be hitting the movie screens. It's a film adapatation of Art Bell and Whitley Strieber's The Coming Global Superstorm, which is a popularized treatment of the climate flip-flop.

The website is excellent, and has several informative links. The photographic effects are among the best ever produced. But it's a disaster flick, so a) expect it to be highly dramatized, and b) don't expect much plot or character development -- though I hope I'll be wrong about that.

Now, Art and Whit have told some pretty tall tales in their day, but they've earned their pay with this one. Strieber's website has a "Quickwatch" page that summarizes some of the major indicators of a return to the ice age. I find Strieber to be among the most humanistic and insightful of New Agers in a group that unfortunately contains some pretty sociopathic characters. He's honest to a fault, so even if you wish to take him to task on his ideas, you'd find he's already been there and back.

And as Strieber says, the ice's return could be "the greatest disaster in human history," or it could be a challenge we can face and surmount.

Roland Emmerich, the producer and director of the movie, was asked, "Your message to the world -- Given a billboard for one final day, what would you put or say on it?"

Emmerich's reply?

"No more Bush"

--bkl